Spring cleaning is something that most people look forward to as it gives them the opportunity of a fresh start and is a great time to do any redecorating. Here are ten tips for spring decorating that will ensure you get your desired look at a price to suite your budget.

1. Paint one wall in your living room a bright cheerful color and therefore turn it into a focal point that is sure to put a smile on everyone’s face.
2. Wherever possible incorporate white into your décor scheme as it is a clean color, you can use off white or ivory to give the same feel and look.
3. A great look for spring is the use of floral prints, you don’t need to carry this through the entire year, but they are great for that spring look.
4. Get rid of the blinds and curtains; let the bright spring sunshine in, use a valance instead.
5. Spring flowers are a must have, but you don’t need to buy expensive vases. Keep a look out for some cheap glass wear, it serves the same function and still looks great.
6. Don’t overdo it on the walls, choose one piece of artwork that you really like and make it your focal point. The rest of your pictures can be displayed on your coffee table or shelves.
7. Buy some spring stencils and paint some pictures on a white handkerchief and display them on side tables or use them to rest your vases and table lamps on.
8. Spring would not feel the same if you didn’t have some pansies displayed in your room. They are easy to care for and do not need a lot of space.
9. To welcome your guests with that spring feeling, hang some flower baskets on your porch along with a bird feeder to encourage the birds.
10. A wreath full of spring flowers is not only great for your new spring décor, but can easily be changed to suite the seasons or holidays.

Spring is a season of rejuvenation and excitement and using the ten tips for spring decorating above will ensure that not only your family, but also your friends will feel warm and happy whenever they enter your home.

I just found this great article by Rachel Paxton and thought I would add it here for you to enjoy.

Rachel shares her thoughts on organizing her my seasonal accessories, something which most of us start to think about at this time of the year:-)

- I store my seasonal decorations in several large stackable Rubbermaid containers: two for Christmas, one for Easter/spring, and one for autumn/Thanksgiving. When I’m ready to change themes, I get out the one(s) to put things away in, dust or otherwise clean the area(s) where the new decorations will sit, and then get out the new decorations. The storage containers get put back away, and everything is still organized for next season. Make sure you mark the containers in some way to know which one is which. Color coding them buy buying different colored containers works well.

- You will inevitably forget to put something away and stumble across it when you’re cleaning another day. In each bathroom I have a corner of a closet shelf reserved for miscellaneous seasonal decorations. Or if someone gives you a seasonal gift you don’t have anywhere else to put at the moment, this is a good place to put it.

I personally store all my Christmas decorations and the like in a high up cupboard where you need a step ladder to reach. It’s not much use for storing anything else and get it all out of our road.

Rachel then discusses how she goes about decorating the different rooms of her home.

Kitchen: I don’t do a lot of seasonal decorating in the kitchen, but there are a couple of easy things you can do to liven it up a little. Seasonal dish cloths and hand towels are really cute, as well as seasonal floor mats. If you use the towels for decoration only, like hanging from your oven door handle, they will still be nice for the next year. Seasonal refrigerator magnets are also easy to update.

Dining Area: Our dining room table is the focal point of our dining room. We have a long oak table that is great for seasonal decorating. A table runner makes a nice seasonal addition. I have one made out of Easter fabric for spring, a floral one for summer, and one of Christmas fabric. I just need to get one for autumn. You can accessorize with seasonal place mats, napkins, and napkin rings. These you can make yourself or pick up at yard sales or clearance sales off-season. I also like to decorate the center of the table for the season. A lot of times I will use a vase of seasonal flowers. For autumn I have a vase of artificial fall foliage. I accent the vase with Indian corn, gourds, and artificial fall leaves.

Living Room: The main areas of the living room I concentrate on are the fireplace mantel and hearth, a corner curio shelf, and the entertainment center. I lay a garland across the top of the entertainment center that can be changed with the seasons: fall foliage for autumn, flowers for spring and summer, and evergreens for winter. On the shelves of the entertainment center and the curio shelves I rotate my seasonal knickknacks. The last place I decorate is the top of the piano. Sometimes I just decorate with houseplants and photographs, but it is also a great place to showcase collections, like my angels at Christmas or my bunny village in the spring. I also have a piece of fabric draped over the piano that I can change with the seasons.

Other: Window clings are great for any season. Door wreaths can also be rotated any time of year. My grapevine wreath goes up in the autumn and is soon replaced by my Christmas wreath. You could have one for every season. Although I don’t have one yet, a lot of people have seasonal flags or banners displayed outside of the house. These you could buy or make yourself.

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom who is the author of What’s for Dinner?, an e-cookbook containing more than 250 quick easy dinner ideas. For more recipes, gardening, organizing tips, home decorating, holiday hints, and more, visit Creative Homemaking at http://www.creativehomemaking.com.

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From two-year-olds to adults, everyone loves finding hidden treasure—and Easter time is the perfect season for satisfying that desire by having an Easter egg hunt in your very own yard.

Regardless of whether your idea of Easter décor leans more toward the religious than the cute bunny side, remember that the colors of Easter are the colors of spring: soft, light pastels of blue, pink, green and yellow are perfect for this universally pleasing season. Almost any decorations in these pastel shades and certainly any decorations that feature bunnies, chicks and eggs are Easter appropriate.

Start your egg hunt decorating at your front door by hanging an Easter banner and a wreath of silk spring flowers. You could also surround the front door with a strand of tiny white lights, or small Easter-themed lights, to make the décor visible at night.

On your porch or patio, place a group of bunnies on a table covered with a pastel cloth and add several small flowerpots of daffodils, narcissus or bluebells.

Naturally, a basket is the most versatile and charming Easter accessory of all. Place an Easter basket filled with faux grass and small packets of jelly beans and wrapped candy eggs near the front door or other sheltered location.

If you have modest talent as a carpenter—or know someone who does—consider cutting a six-foot tall Easter bunny from quarter-inch plywood. You really only need to cut out an outline, because once that is done you can paint a bunny on the cutout. Although this project may sound extensive and time-consuming, you can use this decoration for years and years without having to do another thing to it except store it in the attic or basement in between Easters!

Schedule a full day to accomplish this project. In addition to the cutout, you’ll need acrylic paints, brushes, brush cleaner and—unless you are very artistic—a picture of an Easter bunny to use as a guide. Prop your finished bunny against a tree, or make a support for the back side.

Other Easter décor ideas for you yard include hanging plastic Easter eggs from tree branches and supplementing your own flowers with silk daffodils, tulips and irises stuck in the ground alongside your front walk.

By the time Easter rolls around, your yard will be ready for your friends and family and a fabulously fun egg hunt. If you are hiding real eggs, consider swathing them in colorful tulle for an added decorative touch. If you are hiding candy and chocolates, use tiny baskets that hold a few goodies to protect the sweets from bugs and dirt.

You can certainly make it even more creative by spending the time to create a real treasure hunt to find the large chocolate bunny – leaving clues hidden around the yard – with one clue leading to the next clue and finally to the treasure!

Adding a touch of playful fun with Easter decorations is an easy and pleasurable activity the entire family can enjoy.

Everyone knows that newlyweds usually don’t have much money when they first get married. Not having the extra cash to spend on home decorating can be especially bothersome around Christmastime, but don’t worry! Decorating on a budget is fun and can bring a newlywed couple closer together as they create new holiday traditions.

Remember how much fun you used to have as a kid making your own Christmas decorations? Well, guess what, it’s just as much fun as an adult! Go outside and gather together pinecones, fallen leaves, nuts, tree branches, or any other natural elements you can find that look interesting. Paint the pinecones, leaves, and nuts with gold spray paint and arrange them in a bowl, on the mantel, or glue colorful ribbons to them to hang from the tree like ornaments. Spray paint a bunch of bare tree branches in silver, gold, or even Christmas red. Tie them together with some ribbon in the middle and hang it over mirrors, doors, windows, or the fireplace.

Buy a big box of those inexpensive glass ornaments or use old hand-me-downs to design your own ornaments in your favorite colors. You can decorate the outsides with glitter, paint, or use decoupage. Using paint pens draw on stars, polka dots, trees, stockings, or whatever else you like. Using clear glass ornaments, take the metal hanger out from the top and pour acrylic paints inside of them and swirl it around to make some funky and interesting designs.

Make some beautiful beaded snowflake ornaments out of hatpins, beads, thread, and cork. Using hatpins with decorative pearl ends, place glass or plastic beads onto each one and leave about a quarter inch at the end. Paint the cork pieces and when dry stick the pins into the cork in a star pattern. Tie a piece of thread around the head of one of the hatpins and hang on the tree.

You don’t have to have a tree either to use all of your handmade Christmas decorations. Using brightly colored curling ribbon, hang your ornaments in-between staircase spindles, from beneath the fireplace mantel, in the windows, or just place them in bowls and set them on the table. Christmas table decorations can be easy.

Using Christmas wrapping paper, ribbon, and bows wrap empty moving boxes or tissue boxes like presents and stack them all around the house. Your friends and family will really think you hit the jackpot with all those presents lying around the house! Take pictures off the walls and wrap them up like presents too and hang them back up again.

Add some Christmas sparkle to your home by saving old glass jars or buying mason jars at yard sales. Place a small tea light candle in each of them. Take some ribbon and tie it around the outside opening of the jar for a simple, yet elegant Christmas touch. Paint stars or red and green polka dots on the outsides and fill the bottoms with crushed up candy canes or colorful glass beads.

Being newlyweds and on a strict budget never has to mean a house that is void of decorations or festivity. Use your imagination and you can easily and affordably create a Christmas dream home that you will enjoy the entire holiday season.

The fall holiday season is just great; especially for kids (of all ages). Involving your children in holiday decorating allows you to share a very positive activity with them and gives you the opportunity to teach them something about the holiday at the same time.

When the holiday in question is Thanksgiving, there are a number of décor components children can find to make your Turkey Day table festive. Colored leaves are a great place to start. You can even make a game of finding them and give prizes for the biggest, most colorful and prettiest leaves. Be sure to collect a lot of leaves, and gently wash and pat them dry before using in your décor.

Traditionally, Thanksgiving tables feature a cornucopia, which can be impressive without getting in the way of dinner table conversation the way that a taller table decoration might do. You can buy a big wicker version for the centerpiece and several smaller ones to serve as place card holders for family and guests.

Begin by centering the large model on the table on top of a pretty white linen table runner. Fill the big cornucopia with fall fruits such as apples, oranges and grapes, being careful to arrange them so that the grapes don’t get crushed and stain the table runner. Let family members know these fruits are NOT for eating until the day after Thanksgiving! Alternately, you could use miniature pumpkins, squash and gourds.

Ask the children to place the colorful fall leaves they found around the base of the cornucopia. You can also scatter some unshelled nuts around it, too—Brazil nuts, walnuts and pecans are best, because peanuts are just too easy for people to pick up and crack with their fingers.

Buy some fat, pillar type candles in autumn colors and set them on small terra cotta plant saucers that will catch the melting wax. Be sure to stick some adhesive felt to the undersides of the saucers before putting them on your table to avoid scratching your tabletop. If you have young children, you may also want to use double sided tape to secure the candle base to the saucer beneath. Let the kids arrange nuts, berries and some small fall leaves to hide the saucers.

Use colorful linens as well, but make sure they are in solid fall colors such as fern green, deep crimson red and burnt orange so as not to take away from your cornucopia centerpiece on its pristine white table runner. Solid wood napkin rings add a nice earthy touch, too.

Fill each of the small cornucopias with leaves, and then attach a white homemade place card on top; one for each of your visitors. Get the kids involved here too, allow them to write the names on the place cards or decorate each one with stickers and unique art.

Now all you have to do is prepare your Thanksgiving feast, welcome your holiday visitors into your home and enjoy your fabulous festive table.

©2007, Kathy Burns-Millyard

Related Article: Creating a Table Centerpiece for Any Holiday

A Victorian Christmas Tree: Get the Look for Your Home

A Victorian Christmas tree is all about over-the-top opulence and excessive detail. The Victorian Christmas tree style started in 1841 when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert put one up and all of England followed suit. Victorian Christmas trees do not use the traditional red and green coloring that is typical today. Instead, more elegant colors were used, such as dusty roses, brilliant blues, deep burgundies, delicate ivories, and sparkling gold.

Victorian Christmas trees were often decorated with small toys, candy, popcorn strings, fruits, nuts, handmade ornaments, and baked goods. Individual candles were originally used, but with the invention of string lights the use of clear white lights are a much safer option for today’s Victorian Christmas trees.

Victorian trees were also frequently adorned with gilded ornaments. You can purchase gold coated ornaments and decorations or you can easily make your own. Gather together some pinecones from the yard, cut out cardboard stars, or buy inexpensive toys and Christmas ornaments at a discount store and simply spray paint them with gold paint. Attach a velvet ribbon to each item and hang them on the Christmas tree.

Making handmade ornaments was a common Christmas activity in Victorian times and using decoupage was a popular method. Buy inexpensive round Christmas ornaments that have a smooth, somewhat flat surface to them. Cut out pictures from holiday magazines or old greeting cards and decoupage them to the ornaments. Once completely covered, brush on a thick coat of decoupage medium on the outside and let them dry. Hanging them by their hooks in an open area will help them dry quicker.

Victorians loved using ribbons and lace of white, gold, and ivory on their Christmas trees. Wrap your tree with beautiful ribbons after you place the lights on it, but before you add the ornaments. You can attach several strips at the top and let them hang down vertically all around the tree or wrap the ribbon around in a spiral manner from top to bottom. Using wire edged ribbon is a good way to create a wavy, flowing look.

Add edible elements to your Victorian tree by stringing popcorn and cranberries, gluing ribbon to nuts and hanging from branches, or baking homemade cutout Christmas cookie and using them as ornaments. Make sure you poke a hole at the top of each cookie before you bake them to create a place for a ribbon to pass through. You might want to spray these cookies with lacquer if you’re worried about attracting bugs, but make sure everyone knows they’re not for eating!

Popular Victorian decorating themes were angels and roses. Fill your tree’s branches with angel ornaments and top it with a beautiful angel tree topper. Using all ivory, white, or even blue will really make your tree stand out. You can also add silk roses in soft pinks and natural baby’s breath for a stunning look. Wrap long pieces of white organza or strings of pearls in-between the roses for a soft and beautiful Victorian look.

©2007, Kathy Burns-Millyard

If there’s one food that embodies Christmas to perfection, it’s gingerbread. Bake it, and your entire house smells like a holiday. Nibble it, and you’re transported to Christmas past. But what elevates gingerbread above a mere seasonal treat is its decorative quality. Turn it into ornaments and gifts, and every tree or tabletop it touches seems joyous. Even its monkish hue, which may not look very festive, is a warm and amiable backdrop for whimsical shapes and fanciful icing in any color you like.

The gingerbread cookie was the favorite Christmas treat of early-American children. It became popular because it was inexpensive to make and resilient enough to withstand the vagaries of wood- and coal-fired ovens. Gingerbread enthusiasts, however, like to point out that gingerbread became beloved for its taste—that inimitable combination of molasses, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg—and for the fun it provides.

Gingerbread’s delights were evident as far back as the early Christian era, when ancient Romans baked it in portable ovens. The confection was so desirable during the reign of Elizabeth that the royal family employed its own gingerbread baker. Gingerbread became synonymous with extravagant decoration; cut into shapes or baked in wooden molds, it was iced with sugar and gilded. Gingerbread also proved to be a near-perfect construction medium, ideal for building elaborate edifices.

Creating a gingerbread house or Christmas-tree decorations can be so enjoyable, you may want to make it a part of your holiday activities each year. The fun begins with the planning. You can render, in miniature, your favorite cottage or skyscraper, or perhaps a facade of your house—or the house of your dreams. Or you might consult an architecture or history book for more ideas. Stars, butterflies, and snowflakes make enchanting decorations, too. Gingerbread is so adaptable—almost anything you like can be interpreted with golden-brown dough and royal icing, from barnyard animals to Faberge eggs.

Even as a building material, gingerbread abounds with sensual delights. There’s the pleasure of rolling the dough and cutting out designs. There’s comfort and delight in the scent of baking gingerbread, redolent of spices, as it wafts from the oven and fills the kitchen and house. Making gingerbread is an engaging holiday project for any child old enough to manipulate a cookie cutter or squeeze a pastry bag with some degree of precision. And decorating cookies is a splendid exercise in self-expression, especially because icing is so forgiving; if you make a mistake, just wipe it off before it dries, and try again. Gingerbread cookies and constructions can be elegantly simple or astonishingly complex, and each has its own reward. But gingerbread, of course, is meant to be eaten, so be sure to make an extra batch or two. You will recall that heavenly flavor each time you admire your gingerbread house or gaze at the colorful cookies glistening on the tree.

©2007, Kathy Burns-Millyard

What could be more glorious than a holiday table laden with fruit? Fruit is nature’s bounty and an eloquent symbol of its richness. The Dutch and Flemish masters immortalized fruit, as well as flowers, in their prettiest still lifes. But it was the French, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, who refined fruit centerpieces into soaring pyramids of glistening cherries and grapes; elaborate epergnes whose branches were filled with strawberries, figs, and miniature apples; or a single golden pineapple served up on a pedestal.

The French built centerpieces in a variety of vessels, mixing real fruit, flowers, and leaves with ceramic fruit. Sometimes the fruit was meant to be eaten, and other times not, since some of the techniques to make a pyramid stable, like drizzling warm caramel over the arrangement or pouring water over it so it would ice, made the display purely decorative. But then a fruit centerpiece was designed less to be tasted than to dazzle and to amuse.

The best fruits for creating table decorations have sturdy skins and can thrive without being refrigerated. Apples, oranges, and lemons, for example, may last several weeks; grapes stay pretty for four or five days. Combining fruit is as rich an art as arranging flowers, and just as rewarding, if you learn to appreciate fruit for its color, shape, texture, and size, as you do your favorite blooms. Be simple or be grand.

A single pear crowning a slender candlestick can be as eloquent as a lily in a bud vase—or a tower of plums, pears, and grapes can have the intricacy of a lavish bouquet.

You can make delectable arrangements with surprising ease. Construct a tall cone of fruit simply by piercing each piece of fruit with a toothpick, then piling the fruit in circles on a Styrofoam form. Create sparkling table ornaments with a coat of spray-on adhesive and a frosting of granulated sugar. A single piece of fruit can shine, dressed with a ribbon at each place setting.

For still richer arrangements, combine fruit with greenery. Sprigs of princess pine or boxwood can enliven a fruit pyramid. Red fruit will look even more vivid against bluish evergreens, like eucalyptus or white pine. Wired to a wreath or garland, apples and plums will resemble luscious Christmas-tree balls. And don’t forget artificial fruit: A swag garnished with polystyrene fruit is both lightweight and long-lasting.

Fruit is so vibrant it can provide a color theme for your table or the decoration of an entire dining room. To dress up a serene green-and-white dining room for the holidays, you can gather the reddest apples, pomegranates, litchi, and viburnum berries, and place them atop the mantel and table. Fruit can also spin a mood. A spiky pineapple and the bright, sunny hues of oranges, lemons, and limes may call to mind the tropics. But what fruit does best is help you welcome the holidays, and your guests, with one of nature’s sweetest, most prized gifts.

©2007, Kathy Burns-Millyard

Creating an elegant centerpiece for your holiday table doesn’t have to be difficult. There are a few basic rules you can use to build a centerpiece for any holiday you want to commemorate; the rest, as they say, depends on you.

First of all, make sure that whatever centerpiece you design isn’t so tall that it will interfere with people seated on opposite sides of your table seeing and speaking with each other. There’s nothing worse than trying to unobtrusively crane your neck to see around a centerpiece that blocks your view! Think low and wide rather than tall and narrow.

Then choose a container to hold the main body of the centerpiece. This can be anything that catches your fancy; perhaps a unique wicker basket, your grandmother’s heirloom fine china compote or a fabulous art pottery bowl. Inside this main container, place another, slightly smaller leak proof plastic or glass “liner” container with a profile sufficiently lower than the main container. If there’s enough space between the two containers to allow the liner to wiggle, stuff the space with foam or wadded up newspaper to keep everything stable.

Place as large a chunk of florist’s foam as will fit inside the liner with about an inch above the rim to spare, then fill the liner with water and let the foam soak it up, adding more water if necessary until the foam is saturated.

Now, it’s time to begin your arrangement. Choose flowers and greenery appropriate for the season: Daffodils and irises in the spring, roses in the summer, chrysanthemums and small branches of bittersweet in the fall and evergreen boughs and holly in winter. Cut two similar flowers or branches to the same height and insert them into each end of the foam. Then build your centerpiece using a combination of the fresh flowers and other plant materials you’ve selected. Keep “layering” your different floral ingredients until the container appears filled.

Depending on your home, the holiday or special event and your decorating style your new table centerpiece can be as simple or as elaborate as you want. Keep in mind that if the flowers are coming from the florist, the larger your arrangement, the more expensive the project will cost you. However, don’t forget to look in your own backyard for natural elements such as twigs, boughs and pinecones to add a distinct and eclectic feel to your arrangement.

Tip: Trailing greenery such as shoots of ivy is wonderful to include at any time of the year. Place them along the sides of the foam between the floral components and allow them to drape gracefully over the side of the container; place several in between the larger flower stems as well. You can also use a few small pre-wired gold or silver ornaments, small fancy wired ribbon bows or an inexpensive garland of sparkly stars to add a festive seasonal note.

©2007, Kathy Burns-Millyard. All Rights Reserved.

Put the ‘Boo’ Back in your Yard this Halloween: Quick, Fun and Cheap Decorating Projects

Thinking of going all out in decorating your yard for Halloween this year? There’s certainly no reason not to—Halloween decorations are inexpensive and fun to make, and the effects on others, especially young children in your neighborhood, can be fun to watch as well.

Go through the family closets and find the oldest, rattiest clothes to use for dressing scarecrows. That pair of jeans you reserve for really messy tasks like painting the garage door or hauling trash to the dump will be perfect. Then gather up some white trash bags with pull closures, some small rags and an old broom an get started building your scarecrow. Stuff a small trash bag with rags for the head. When the bag is big enough and fairly round, tie it off and draw a face on it using permanent ink markers. Attach the head to the bottom of a small broom, secure a piece of wooden doweling crosswise under the neck, then dress your scarecrow, pulling a long-sleeved shirt over the dowel “arms” and a pair of jeans or trousers over the broom handle body. You can use the same process to make ghost heads and complete their ghostly look by tying old white sheets around the base of the “neck.”

String fake cobwebs from every branch you can reach in your yard. Buy the biggest, ugliest rubber spiders you can find and hag them with clear plastic fishing line so it looks as if they are just waiting to drop on the next unfortunate person who happens to walk by.

You can also make a really scary spider: Just stuff a black plastic garbage bag with old newspapers and seal the end to make the body. Use a smaller stuffed black plastic bag for the head and old black pantyhose stuffed slightly with paper and attached to the body of the spider with tape or staples as legs. Draw a couple of eyes with bright red or green permanent markers and hang your big spider from a tall tree limb or your porch ceiling.

Turn your front yard into a graveyard by cutting cardboard or Styrofoam headstones. Paint with Fleck stone spray paint, and then inscribe them with birth and death dates and funny sayings. Cut a rectangle from the back of a jack-o-lantern, place a lighted candle inside and place the jack-o-lantern in front of the tombstone, where the candle will cast a nice eerie, flickering glow over the tombstone.

Finally, as the perfect finishing touch, place crime scene tape around the perimeter of your yard and porch. If you cannot find the tape locally, you can purchase 50 feet on eBay for under $3.00.

With just a little imagination, some home supplies and very little money you can turn your front yard into an eerie delight—and have a truly scary Halloween!

©2007, Kathy Burns-Millyard. All Rights Reserved.